Shoulder To Cry On Pt 01

Authors note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, events and incidents are the products of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

A Shoulder to cry on: Part One

Chapter One: Silas

Silas Johnson flipped open the lid on the portable toolbox that was sitting in front of him. He'd set the faded red metal box onto the table so he could give it a good sorting out. Aware that his wife was sitting a few yards away, resting in a deckchair on the walkway in front of their ground floor apartment, he'd taken the precaution of putting down some sheets of newspaper to protect the furniture.

He lifted out the heavier tools, barely noticing their weight. Each was familiar to him, old friends that his large black hands cradled as such as he removed them. A selection of hammers, screwdrivers, wrenches, Allen Keys and pipe grips... the tools he found he required most often these days. Beneath them lay the items he had a mind to tidy up. Loose screws, O-rings, the occasional zip tie, random nuts and bolts. He had a larger toolset, a roll around unit, that he kept locked away in his garage. To his chagrin, this small selection was adequate for the work he now did.

In his former occupation as a floor maintenance supervisor at a factory, Silas had spent each day engaged with preventative maintenance and repair work on a variety of industrial machines. He'd been one of the lucky people in life, finding enormous satisfaction in his work, the act of troubleshooting a problem and then eliminating it would inevitably send him home each day after his shift with the inner glow of a person who feels they've made a difference that day.

Silas would still be there if not for a combination of his wife's ambitions and the sloppy work of a trainee. An industrial accident had started the ball rolling, a badly repaired machine leaving Silas with some minor facial scars and diminished sight in his right eye. With his dark skin, the scarring on his right cheek and around his eye socket appeared as slightly darker spots, only in a few places the flesh puckering from the wounds. The compensation had been generous, a reflection both of the company's culpability and their efforts to do right by an exemplary employee. Seeing their financial windfall, his wife had set to persuading him to leave his job behind, move from Michigan and its cold winters and head south to warmer climes. Since their children were raised and moved out, Silas had found it hard to argue with his wife, Janet.

That was why he found himself aged fifty and living in the northern half of the great state of Florida, running his own business. That business was as a motel owner. Janet had found a seventy-three key motel for sale that they could afford by a combination of their savings, his compensation and the sale of their family home. It had seemed an ideal business for them to collaborate on, Janet taking over 'client relations' as she put it and owning the housekeeping side of things, Silas taking on the physical upkeep and maintenance of the building.

It would have been perfect if business had been brisker. As it was, they were making ends meet, turning over a small profit each month. Summers were better but the unreliability of income had chafed with Silas, so used to a regular pay cheque. His wife had then hit on the idea of offering discounted rates for long term stays, targeting people who were content to live in a motel for months on end until they were in a position, financially, to move on to something more residential. That meant that of the seventy-three rooms, twenty were occupied consistently by people Silas now viewed as 'tenants' rather than guests.

He swept the junk he'd removed from the toolbox into his cupped hand, rising from the table to deposit it into a small trash can in the kitchenette of the apartment.

"They at it again." His wife's voice drifted in from the open doorway. Silas feigned obliviousness, carrying on as if she'd said nothing. He sat back at the table, beginning the process of stowing his tools away.

"I said they at it again, Silas." Janet had pitched her voice so that he couldn't pretend he hadn't heard her. Not for the first time, he found himself wishing the accident would have robbed him of some of his hearing rather than his sight.

"Uh-huh, I hear them," he replied, hoping that would be an end to the conversation.

It wasn't.

"I swear, I don't know where they think they are. Carrying on like this. It aint right. Lot of good folks living here and having to listen to them screaming and fighting. It aint right. It aint Christian neither, way they set to cussing and hollering at each other."

"Nobody complained to me. They complain to you?" Silas knew that it was just his wife who had a problem. By a stroke of fortune, the other long-term residents were at the far end of the motel and the noise didn't carry that far.

"That's not the point," Janet called into him, scolding him with a stern look. He knew it wouldn't be the point, anything that wasn't in agreement with Janet's view of the world was never going to be 'the point'.

"Uh-huh," Silas repeated, closing his toolbox and wishing he was needed somewhere, anywhere, just so as to get a break away by himself. He loved Janet, in his own way. When they'd married, she had been eighteen years old and he'd just turned twenty-two. Back then his wife had been a willowy reed of loveliness, brimming with a lust for life and adventure, passionate for her husband and the journey into the future together. Janet's mother had been Puerto Rican, her father a Haitian émigré, so his wife's features were lighter in tone that his own. The passage of twenty-eight years, the birth and raising of four kids and a lifelong overindulgence with fried food had left Janet three times the size of her teenage self, replacing her lust for life and her husband with a sour disposition and a penchant for adopting a religious moral viewpoint when considering others. He'd hoped their move south might have reawakened her younger vibrant self, let her shake off this increasingly negative character she'd turned into. So far, no joy.

"Maybe they think this is acceptable behavior, back from whatever backward culture they from, but it aint, not here, not in this country," Silas could hear Janet was getting into full swing now, the volume of her voice picking up. He winced at the thought of her words carrying to another's ears.

"They're from Columbus Ohio, aren't they?" Silas did his best to keep his rebuke mild and framed as a question, not wanting her to turn his displeasure on him.

"Mmmm Hmmm, so

they

said at least," Janet conceded, turning back now to stare out towards the near corner of the main motel block. Their own apartment stood separate, a combination of living quarters and the front desk for the motel. The complex looked like a capital T with a full stop just after. The vertical stem was a two-storied structure containing forty motel rooms. There was then a small gap wide enough for a road and then the horizontal running structure, also on two floors, contained thirty-two units. The seventy-third room was the one occupied by Silas and Janet, the 'full stop' if viewing the complex on Google maps.

The 'they' his wife was caustically referring to; were a mother and daughter who had moved in four days previously. Asian-American, Silas figured a Japanese heritage, the two women had been at odds with one another from the moment they'd arrived. Janet had done most of the talking with the new arrivals in her role as the 'face' of the business, Silas just offering a greeting as they'd checked in. His offer to help them move into the room, a top corner one, had been politely turned down by the mother while the daughter had thrown her head back with a look of total disgust when she realized that since her mother had declined the help, their luggage would be hauled up the flight of stairs by them alone.

Aware that his wife was also watching the newcomers, Silas couldn't do more that throw a couple of apparently disinterested glances towards them. Considering their typical long stay clients were either destitute, drunks or simply shady in nature, the appearance of these attractive women was intriguing. The fact that although clearly related there was real animosity between them as well made it all the more interesting.

Chapter Two: Keiko and Hana

The Florida heat had set her to sweating so badly that she found herself pulling at her underwear through the shorts she was wearing, wresting the perspiration sodden material off her skin. Her long black hair was tied back into a severe ponytail and the sensation of it sticking to her upper back, the perspiration causing it to cling from time to time was irritating the living shit out of her, not to mention the need to wash her hair every day because of it. She hated Florida. Hated the motel she'd been reduced to living in. She hated the downturn her life had taken recently and God help her, but she hated her daughter more often than not these days.

Twelve months ago, she'd been a successful accountant, happily married and living in the suburbs of Columbus Ohio. A loving husband, a dutiful daughter entering into her final year in high school, nice house, two cars... just a typical middle class Asian-American family.

Then the shit had hit the fan.

Sam had been the cause of it all. Her loving husband had been wrestling with a problem for a few years now and she'd never even guessed at it. Around the time their daughter, Hana, had turned twelve, Sam had developed a gambling problem. Perhaps because he'd been an accountant himself and considered himself good with numbers and finance, he'd thought himself well prepared to clean up at the poker table. Sadly, he was a better bookkeeper than he was a gambler, burning through their savings with increased rapidity so that by the time Hana was fifteen, the money they'd spent the better part of a decade squirrelling away was all gone.

She should have spotted that, but Sam had always insisted on managing their finances and Keiko had let him.

Another year of gambling, chasing after a win that would get him back to being in the black, and Sam had succeeded in running up a sizable debt with the kind of people who didn't take kindly to the non-repayment of money owed. That's when her husband moved from being a gambler into being a thief.

His first move had been to embezzle funds from his own clients, small sums at first, spread across his clients so that it wasn't obvious. That wasn't enough though, his private clientele portfolio wasn't large enough for him to keep embezzling small amounts from. So, he moved onto Keiko's client, the midsized manufacturing company she worked for as the principal accounts manager. She'd left her work laptop unlocked and he'd gained access to the accounts of the company. Small sums grew to large ones, Sam not only siphoning off money to repay his debts, he was taking out more to gamble, his addiction completely out of control. As his desperation to dig himself out of this hole grew, so his caution shrank. An enquiry by a concerned client to bring attention to his business dealings, an internal audit by her company highlighting the misappropriation of funds nominally under her control.

The fall out was messy, public and catastrophic. Sam had found himself exposed, the shame and guilt from his actions, from the impact to his family, causing him to seek escape through suicide.

Things hadn't stopped with that. Her company, accepting that she hadn't been directly involved, still fired her for negligence. The bank foreclosed on her home, their cars, all to meet debts she hadn't been aware of. Their savings were gone, Sam's life insurance void through his suicide, Keiko's professional reputation in tatters.

Hana, just turning eighteen, found herself without a father, a home and with friends who whispered about her behind her back. While Keiko had the maturity to at least comprehend the change in circumstances, coping with it was another matter. Hana hadn't the sagacity to deal with the fallout. She needed someone to blame, to hold accountable. Dead, Sam was untouchable in his teenage daughter's mind, a saint. That left Keiko, her mother, to be unfairly blamed instead.

A college friend had come to her rescue, offering Keiko a fresh start with a small accounting firm in Florida. It was a starter entry position, low pay, but it offered the possibility of a new beginning, away from the shadow cast by Sam's actions. Keiko had gratefully accepted the job offer, moving herself and Hana down south. Without savings, they'd taken the cheap accommodation at the motel, a stop gap till her wages allowed Keiko to afford something better.

The change in circumstances also put a hold on Hana attending college, for this year at least. Yet another disappointment to be laid at Keiko's feet.

Keiko found that herself and Hana were at one another's throats on an almost daily basis now. Hana couldn't seem to do anything but blame Keiko for everything that had gone wrong. Her father gambled and stole... that was only because Keiko hadn't realized and intervened before the situation got out of control. Her father killed himself... simply due to Keiko not providing him with the support he needed. The house and Hana's college place were gone... well wasn't Keiko an accountant? She should have been able to sort things out. Moving to Florida and staying in this motel... again, Keiko's fault for not being able to get a job closer to home.

She'd tried an olive branch that morning, suggesting that the two of them drive into the closest city, have a day out together. Then the secondhand rust bucket of a car that had struggled to carry them all the way here from Ohio had failed to start. Raging with disappointment, Hana had stormed off... somewhere, leaving Keiko standing beside the car in the Motel parking lot.

Now she was still stood there, the hood of the car raised up, dripping with sweat, underwear clinging to her like a second skin, trying to work out what was wrong. It wasn't that Keiko knew anything about cars, it was just that until she started in her new job on Monday and her paycheck's started to come in, she didn't really have the money to waste on a mechanic. Somehow, she needed to get this thing running, though God alone knew how that miracle would be accomplished. As if beseeching an intervention from the heavens above, she threw her eyes skyward, praying silently that her luck might change because surely it couldn't get any worse.

"You know, it's easier to spot the problem if you're looking down, not up." The voice coming from behind her made Keiko jump, her frayed nerves not equal to the shock of any more surprises. She half turned after her mini hop of surprise to see a slightly familiar black man a few feet away. It took her a moment to recognize him as the husband of Janet, the woman who owned the motel.

"I know that," she said irritably, "not that looking at this piece of crap engine for the last twenty minutes has done me any good."

"Mind if I have a go?"

"Uh, sure," Keiko stepped aside, surprise writ large on her face at the man's offer. She'd caught the disapproving looks that Janet had been throwing her way, no doubt in response to the heated and loud arguments Keiko had been having with Hana. So, to find the angry black woman's husband offering his help in a friendly manner was very surprising.

"Do you know what you're doing?" She tried to peer over his shoulder as he worked which proved to be almost impossible as the man was well over six feet in height and broad shouldered, his torso blocking her view effectively. Keiko wasn't particularly tall, just five-foot one inch, and her generous measurements of 34F-25-35 gave the illusion of her being shorter still. She stood back, waiting on his reply, refusing to embrace the indignity of hopping in place to try see what he was up to.

"Don't you worry, I've been working on more complicated and less forgiving machinery since I was younger than your kid even." His reply, muffled by the fact he was facing into the engine compartment, mollified her some and she took a few steps back to stand in the shade of the building while he worked.

His mention of Hana along with Keiko being unable to see past his tall frame put into the Japanese-American mother's mind another thorn in her daughter's foot. Keiko wasn't tall and her husband Samu (Sam) had been five foot six, a little shorter than average. Genetically, Hana seemed to pull the short straw then, no pun intended, as the eighteen-year-old was a diminutive four feet eleven. This rankled her daughter no end, and this combined with the fact that she inherited her mother's slenderness but not her chest really stung. The teenager was a perfect 32B-23-34 but instead of being pleased by her attractiveness she just found resentment in the fact her mother looked even better, to her mind at least.

There was just so much anger between them now. The teenage angst magnified by their circumstances, leading to fights. Fights leading to yet more rebelliousness. The latest acts, Hana getting her nose pierced and Keiko finding cigarettes hidden beneath her bed, leading to blazing rows.

"You want to try her now?" Keiko snapped out of her daydream. The heat and her new tendency to brood on her problems had left her totally unaware of what was happening around her. The black man had closed the hood of the car and was looking towards her, waiting on her response. She colored in embarrassment, sending him a sickly smile, then she hurried to get behind the wheel of her car.

She turned the ignition and the engine burst to life. Keiko gunned it a couple of times before switching it off and getting out.

"Oh my God, thank you so, so much!" she gushed, visibly shaking with the relief of at least one of her myriads of problems being resolved.

"Not a problem, just a loose battery connection, simple fix," he replied.

"I'm sorry, I've forgotten your name," Keiko said awkwardly.

"Silas."

"Silas. I'm Keiko," she offered her hand, the man engulfing it with his own. "Please, what do I owe you?"

"For that? Not a damn thing. Do me a favor though and get that serviced as soon as you can. It's been driven hard by the looks of it and it's just going to keep giving you problems."

"Yeah, yeah, I will eventually," Keiko hedged, almost wincing at the idea of what that would cost her. Astute, Silas seemed to read between the lines, correctly identifying cash as the reason for her balking at the idea of getting the car serviced.

"Now that I think of it, there is something you could do for me," he said speculatively.

"Umm sure, if I can," Keiko replied, wondering if this was where the other shoe dropped.

"Well, I used to be a technician in a factory, before the wife and I bought this place," he waved about him at the motel. "Now I keep busy doing repair work here. Truth to tell, there isn't a whole lot needed beyond changing out bulbs or unclogging toilets. How's about this? You let me work on your car, you pay for the parts if any are needed, I get the pleasure of actually fixing something that needs it and that's my reward. How's that grab you?"

Keiko wasn't sure if this was some sort of charity act on his part, the man feeling sorry for the lone woman, cash strapped and with a difficult and public relationship with her daughter. She hesitated in saying no though. Mainly because she was cash strapped but also because he was open, honest and friendly to her, something she hadn't been on the receiving end of for a while now.

"If... if, you're sure?"

"Trust me, you'll be doing me a favor," Silas leaned in conspiratorially, dropping his voice as he did so. "I could use an excuse to be busy and out of the apartment for a little while." He said it with a smile and a wink but Keiko remembered the brusque manners of his wife Janet and the evil eye she'd been turning towards Keiko and Hana. She didn't think Silas was completely joking.